Etienne
by LesMisLoony
Summary: Etienne Thenardier before Montfermeil, meeting his wife and things like that. Turns out he's exactly as twisted as you think.
1. Eight

**1778**

Every few minutes, Étienne stopped and turned back, squinting into the rising sun, watching the last clump of ramshackle buildings, the final trace of the big city in which he had been raised, grow smaller. His impatient mother tugged at his sleeve again, and he reluctantly continued on the path.

"Perche," his mother said again. Étienne rolled his eyes. "Perche will be much for suitable, boy. You'll never see another towering wig or _pannier _as long as you live! I was raised in Perche, and you'd never catch me crouched in filth while ladies pass by overhead—" And she broke off, fury clogging her throat, and jerked Étienne forward more roughly while the boy did not try to hide a smile.

It had been two months since Étienne and his friends had discovered that the grate at Le Peletier was not completely intact. One of the more intrepid boys had wriggled through the hole created by a missing and a broken bar into the darkness, crying that it was not so very deep and that he could clearly see his comrades. Étienne continued to smirk as he remembered his friend's little white face peering up from the abyss, and the realization that came to all of the assembled boys at the same time. So each evening he and several of his friends waited in the depths of the sewer, watching the grate until, at last, one of the fine ladies passed overhead on her way to the opera. There was always jostling for a better view, and they took turns clinging to the rungs along the side of the tunnel in order to be closer.

Étienne had been the lucky boy on the ladder the day that a fight had broken out amongst his friends below. The scuffle had attracted the attention of a nearby vendor, who had taken them all by surprise by suddenly plunging a long arm through the hole, seizing Étienne, and dragging him out through the little hole. And, through the worst luck imaginable, the vendor was a friend of Étienne's mother.

This latest offense was discovered at the same time that it was announced that France had joined the American colonies in their revolution against Britain, and Étienne's mother was certain that the war, though fought on distant shores, would manage to affect her own daily life if she remained in France's capital. Using her son's delinquency as an excuse, she quickly pawned all of their possessions and packed a little food in a carefully knotted handkerchief. She had somehow seized upon her old hometown as the perfect place to raise a child, and nothing could dissuade her from resettling to that rural place.

Étienne had trotted grudgingly alongside his mother for the first day, but as he saw fewer buildings and more trees and fields, he began to drag his feet. The journey was tedious and difficult: they squatted at the roadside only when the sun was directly overhead, and his mother broke them off a little hunk each of the heavy loaf of black bread she carried in her handkerchief. At night, she slept with the handkerchief clutched in her arms like a dying child.

The bread ran out two days before the two of them reached Perche, and in that time the mother encouraged Étienne to pray so frequently that he actually began to walk faster each time she opened her mouth. He had seen that the mother's strength was flagging, and his only thought was to escape her zealous preaching. The one thing she had kept from their home in Paris was a wooden rosary that was always around her neck, and Étienne heard her murmuring prayers and shifting beads so often that he accepted it as background noise and hardly paid it any attention.

Étienne associated God and religion with long, stifled hours in a sweltering stone building, his body encased in his least comfortable clothes, while the people around him muttered and hummed tunelessly. It was torturous to enter those heavy, dark wooden doors and know that his friends still played in the sunny streets. Étienne's sole joy in leaving Paris was the knowledge that each step took him further from the religious prison to which he had so often been confined.

Another thing he left behind was Julie.

Many of Étienne's friends on the streets had had mothers or older sisters who called themselves "mistresses." The children had been fascinated by the term, and on his eighth birthday, half a year ago, the other boys had deemed Étienne old enough to have a mistress of his own. There had always been a few rough little girls who ran with their crowd, and Étienne, the youngest boy of the lot, was instantly paired with the youngest girl. Julie's duties as "mistress" included following Étienne everywhere (but home) and doing whatever he told her to, for that was what the older boys claimed their big sisters always did. Étienne had been proud to be grown enough to have a mistress until Julie, who a year older, had begun to take her role too seriously. He was equally attracted to and terrified of her.

But all of this conflicting emotion was useless now, so far from Paris. He would never see his friends, the inside of that church, or Julie again.

As soon as his mother had announced they were leaving, Étienne had put all of his energies into vexing her. He did anything that would make her disapprove and began to enjoy the thrill of disobedience. Streaks of gray had appeared in his mother's hair over the last few days.

The two reached Perche in the late evening, and the moment the town came into view his mother had frozen where she stood. Étienne had been several paces behind, for they were entering the stage in the day's journey during which he most liked to complain. He joined his mother a moment after she had stopped.

Before them lay Perche, a little wooden town speckled with trembling streetlamps and a skeleton hay cart. Unimpressed, Étienne looked up at his mother and read puzzlement and fear in her eyes. She clutched the rosary with whitening knuckles. "This isn't how it used to look," she breathed. "It was smaller once. This was all a field. Pray for us, Étienne."

The boy scowled at her in the darkness. He loathed his mother.

When at last she had regained her confidence, Étienne's mother took hold of his shoulder and dragged him to the smallest, least alarming house within sight. Made of buckling boards, the house was two stories tall and featured small windows covered with white cloth instead of glass. Étienne's mother knocked meekly on the door, and a moment later it opened. Rather than listen to the adults' negotiations, Étienne peered around the discolored skirts of the husky woman who had greeted them. The interior of the house was rustic, lit by the flickering yellow glow of firelight. The second story was something of a loft, only accessible by a spindly ladder. Étienne could see the open door of a back room on the ground floor, where a man's feet were visible on a bare mattress. The front room contained a fireplace and a table.

After a very small bit of heckling, the imposing woman showed Étienne and his mother to the loft. They were to pay three francs a month for room and board, taking meals with the family below. The man and his wife were called Jondrette.

Monsieur Jondrette was a tall, broad-shouldered and quiet man with an impressive beard. He worked for a neighboring dairy farmer and always left his manure-caked boots at the door before ambling into the house and falling into bed. He only joined the others for dinner if his wife commanded it.

Though she was as big and as masculine as her husband, Madame Jondrette was almost opposite in demeanor. She was brash and demanding, man-like in appearance and household position. Madame Jondrette endlessly overrode Monsieur in conversation and opinion. Their only behavioral similarity was the stern silences into which the couple would often sink. Étienne's mother found these times tedious and began to fill them with incessant chatter and an obnoxious laugh that almost never received a response. The boy himself hardly ever said a word to any of them.

Étienne never loved Perche. Few children would befriend the "city boy" who was impressed by nothing their little town could offer: everything they had, he would say, had been twice as interesting in Paris. If he was ever lonely, he hid it well. He took revenge on the other children by fighting with and stealing from them. Spying little Étienne was reason to put your hands in your pockets or hug your new toy to your heart. He turned into a strong, tough child, finally managing to impress a few other bullies and, upon being accepted by them, following them everywhere.

One year after they arrived in Perche, Étienne awoke before his mother for the first time. He crept over to her pallet, peering at her white face in the darkness. She was perfectly still.

In just a few moments he had crept down the ladder and out of the house without waking the Jondrettes. He passed Jean Labaude, the town crier, who had just emerged into the street and doffed his tricorne hat to the boy. "And what has you up so early in your nightshirt, lad?"

Keeping a solemn face, Étienne told him that his mother was dead. The man patted him on the shoulder, showing real sympathy, but the boy shook him away and dashed into the woods.

Jean Labaude sighed as he watched the child disappear. It was understandable that poor little Étienne would need to be alone to deal with his grief. He, too, had lost a mother as a child, and he remembered crying for months. His heart went out to this poor boy.

Étienne, meanwhile, had reached the edge of the wood. He slowly turned to face the town of Perche, then raised his little fist to the morning sky. A radiant smile broke across his face as the sun broke across the sky. He was free.

That morning Perche was awakened by the town crier's bell.

"Seven o'clock! Madame Thénardier is dead!"


	2. Twenty

**1790**

Étienne Thénardier had no friends in Perche. He slept as late as he could each morning, then stumbled, clothes askew, to the neighboring dairy farm where he apprenticed Monsieur Jondrette. The older man had offered him the job out of pity, for no one else in the little town would hire such a known troublemaker. Even Jacques Cummert, the farm's owner, had been seen checking his equipment and keepsakes after Étienne left in the evening. When he was not at work or asleep in the Jondrette loft, Étienne would disappear completely. Old Mère Balizard claimed that she had seen him slip into the woods one evening with a heavy sack thrown over one shoulder.

He had arrived in this rural town as a skinny eight-year-old, small for his size, and had hardly changed now at twenty. Étienne was still gangly and only slightly taller, with a long, thin nose and a pronounced brow. He hardly washed his brownish hair, which hung limply to his bony shoulders. His skin was a ruddy tan color. Had it not been for the nose, the people of Perche said, he would have looked like a man returned rudely to life whose body had died centuries ago.

Perhaps he was lonely, for his only comrades were troublemakers, a group of boys who had dubbed themselves "Les Oiseaux," a silly pun on the name of the town. The other boys, however, managed that act that so many children have accomplished in the past in which the adults believe them perfect angels, and only the other children in town know them for what they really are. Étienne was the sole member that failed at this—perhaps because he had no mother to plead his case.

He went on living with the Jondrettes, who kept him after his mother died in hopes that he could help around the house a little, for, though they seemed like two rough people who had always stood in the world together, the Jondrettes had been married hardly a year when Madame Thénardier and her son had joined them in 1778. The boy grudgingly obeyed Madame Jondrette's orders. It was probable that, for all his wild behavior, the idea of being turned out onto the streets did not suit him. He scrubbed pans and floors with only the slightest protest, and over the years became very adept at doing just enough of any job that Madame Jondrette would not complain, then hurrying off to the woods.

Étienne had always planned to return to his beloved Paris the moment he turned twenty, but when that day finally arrived, the capital city had been overturned and roiled in political upheaval. Étienne had no interest in joining this Revolution. Panic swept the countryside, facilitated by the unemployed that frequently passed through the little town, but Étienne was far more afraid of the Revolution in Paris. He remained in Perche—or Eure, as it was now called—and waited for the country to calm down again before he made his journey.

Étienne was not completely removed from the Revolution. He and Les Oiseaux had traveled, torches in hand, to the Château de Gisors. In telling that story later in life, he always maintained that he had burned the château to the ground with the bourgeois pigs inside, though history may say otherwise.

It was late evening when the boys returned home through the woods. Étienne slipped away from the group and faded into the darkness, waiting in breathless silence until he heard the others' crunching footsteps hush into the ominous sounds of the twilit woods. Then, removing his own shoes and holding them in his arms, he took off at a near-silent run, halting at last when he reached a tiny clearing with an odd pile of debris in the middle.

Étienne tossed the vines and twigs away from the pile, revealing an old wagon piled high with knickknacks and valuables. Part of the wagon showed signs of a clumsy repair job, for Étienne had taken it from a trash pile and fixed it to the best of his ability. This was his stash, home to all of the things he would pawn the moment he returned to Paris. Étienne was going to be a rich man, of this he was certain.

He had a sack over his shoulder, and it was quickly emptied of its contents—this little bust was real gold, he was sure of it! Étienne grinned into the night. The moment politics in Paris settled, he would steal a horse from old Cummert and take all of this with him into the capital. He had given a lot of thought to a suitable profession for him to take on. As much practice as he already had, thief was an obvious choice, but he had hoped for a little steadier income. He needed a job where people wouldn't think to mistrust him, one where they would bring along valuables and perhaps leave them unattended. He wanted to see people come to him with a heavy suitcase, and he wanted to relieve them of a part of that burden. Étienne had thought of being a waiter, but the answer had finally secured itself in his head so firmly that he was certain he had found the perfect answer.

He would drive a fiacre.

Of course, he would need accomplices to help him pull off a successful job, but it was an obvious solution and a goal toward which he could constantly work.

Étienne carefully returned the vines to their position covering the wagon and made his way back toward Perche. Madame Jondrette would scold him for sneaking out so early, missing work, and returning so late, and Monsieur Jondrette would give him that fatherly disapproving stare that was supposed to inspire some sort of guilt in his heart. Étienne smirked. At least the little brat was asleep by now. Madame Jondrette was always careful that her precious daughter be in bed by dark.

He was almost out of the woods when Étienne heard a strange noise. He froze instinctively, ears straining against the creaking of crickets for another unnatural sound. He held his breath.

It came again, a grunt that hardly sounded animal, followed by a higher-pitched moan. He turned slowly, wincing at the slight whisper of his bare feet (he still held his shoes) against the dead leaves, and moved gradually toward the noise, which was now accompanied by a rustling sound.

He did not have far to go before a tall shape defined itself against l'Ancien Arbre. Étienne tended to avoid this place, for it was frequented by the other young men and women of Perche. The massive tree was carved full of letters and symbols; it was famous amongst the children for being so very big, but they never dared to venture into these woods at night and see the tree's real purpose or where the letters came from.

It took a moment for Étienne to sort out the scene before him, but what he finally saw branded itself into his mind. Luc Carmagnolet, a younger member of Les Oiseaux, had a girl pressed against the tree, her skirts lifted. Étienne had seen the girl in Perche and knew her only as the minister's daughter, but he never exchanged words with her. Even now, twelve years after his mother's death, he could not stand the thought of the church.

Remaining concealed behind a cluster of slender little trees, Étienne watched the couple until they broke apart and disappeared—separately—in the direction of town. He felt a mixture of the embarrassment and fascination he had once experienced in the face of his boyhood mistress's overtures, the secret elation at the view from beneath the faulty sewer grate at Le Peletier, and a new sensation that combined longing and—jealousy. There were very few girls his age in Perche, and none of them ever bothered to speak to the outcast Étienne had become.

Still buried in this new sensation, Étienne hardly realized that he had left the woods and was slowly approaching the little Jondrette house. He made one unsuccessful attempt to shake himself back into reality and prepare for the shouts and blows with which Madame Jondrette would certainly greet him.

As such, he was very surprised to hear his name called by a high, clear voice before he had even reached the house. He stopped, and a moment later spied a little figure rushing toward him through the field, flattening the tall, dry grasses as she approached. Étienne groaned aloud and waited for her to join him.

Julie Jondrette shared her name with his childhood mistress through a cruel turn of coincidence. Madame Jondrette had announced that she would name the child after one of her parents, and her solemn husband didn't dare argue. Julie had been one of the largest babies Perche had ever seen, weighing in at nearly nine pounds, and at the age of five she already looked at least seven. Madame and Monsieur Jondrette had been almost kind to Étienne until Julie was born. The moment she had a daughter, Madame seemed to feel that every bite of food Étienne ate had been stolen directly from the child's mouth; Monsieur Jondrette, however, grew even quieter. He continued to try to treat Étienne as a son in his own awkward way, for it was apparent that he felt intimidated in the presence of women, including his wife and daughter. Julie, despite all of her mother's lectures, had somehow decided that she adored Étienne; the mother loved her daughter so selflessly that she did not turn him out simply because he amused the child so. Étienne himself merely tolerated the girl's affection, pushing her away when others were nearby. He was not unaware that Julie Jondrette was the only citizen of Perche who cared for him.

As Julie bounded toward him in the field that night, Étienne's mind was filled with the sensations he had just discovered and strife, for he was afraid he would have to hold them inside until he left Perche, whenever that would be. The little girl reached him at last and threw her arms around his legs.

"Maman said you were in trouble, 'Tienne. She said you went away and you wouldn't come back and she was happy because you're bad."

Étienne pushed the girl away and dropped to his knees. The idea forming in his head was equally appealing and terrible. He grinned at the child.

Julie was the kind of person who seemed to have been given a bigger frame than was common, and the extra amount of bone jabbed out at the angles of her body under her thick skin. She had had long, rosy golden hair before the lice; now Madame Jondrette had hacked it away until all that remained was a reddish fuzz prickling from a round scalp. He could tell even at such a young age that Julie would never be pretty. No one in Perche but this husky little girl liked him in the least. Julie would do anything he asked.

Anything he asked.

"Jules," he said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. The girl gazed at him adoringly through her little black eyes. "I was out learning a new big girl game. Do you want to play?"

The child clapped her pudgy hands and squealed in delight. Étienne quickly covered her mouth with his own hand.

"There are two rules. The most important one of all is, the game is a secret. Only me and you can know about it, all right?" Étienne removed his hand and the girl nodded enthusiastically. "Do you promise?" Another nod. "Good." He settled himself more comfortably in the grass, crossing his skinny legs. "The other rule is the whole point of the game. You have to do anything I tell you to without asking any questions. Can you do that?"

Enraptured, Julie nodded again, her eyes widening with expectancy.

"This is the first thing," Étienne grinned, putting his hands on her waist and pulling her toward him. "Jules," he said, "come with me."


	3. Twenty Seven

**1797**

Madame Jondrette was waiting when her husband returned to the house with Étienne in tow. She met them in the doorway; her meaty, pink hands on her wide hips and a snarl twisting across her ruddy face.

Étienne had felt some concern when Monsieur Jondrette had seized him so roughly by the upper arm, for his employer generally had such a mild character; his worry had only increased as Monsieur used a strength Étienne had never seen him exhibit to pull the younger man back to the house, almost dragging him on several occasions. Now the sight of Madame Jondrette's rage furthered his unease.

Monsieur Jondrette almost threw him into the front room of the little house, ducking his own shaggy head as he stepped inside himself and brought the door closed behind his back. Étienne quickly moved into the corner by the fireplace, facing the angry couple before him. Even at twenty-seven the sheer size of the Jondrette family was intimidating, especially in the face of a man as scrawny as Étienne.

He waited, barely hiding his anxiety, for one of them to speak.

When Étienne had reached his early twenties, the Jondrettes had turned him out. Fortunately, old Jacques Cummert had died that same year, leaving his dairy farm to Monsieur Jondrette. Because the man had still treated Étienne almost like a son, he had hired him as his assistant, paying him wages enough to rent a room at the local tavern, provided he help his landlord the innkeeper when he got the chance. His work schedule was obviously busy, but his reputation in Perche had begun to improve. Les Oiseaux had disbanded years ago when a group of them went to Paris to seek their fortunes, and Étienne had actually taken control of his impulses to wreak havoc on his fellow man. Even among these changes, the memories of people in small towns are sharp, and Étienne was alone. Almost.

There was a long pause in which both the red-faced Jondrettes glared at their prey. Just as Étienne was wondering if anyone would break silence, the back door creaked open and Julie entered the room.

She was twelve years old now, but already she was bigger than Étienne, who was nearing thirty. Her hair had grown back a distressed orange color, clashing with her pink cheeks. She was not pretty. It had been seven years since Étienne had first led her to l'Ancien Arbre and taught her their Game, and the two had kept it up several times a week. Then, several months ago, Étienne had unbuttoned his pants and shown her the second level of the Game. Julie had been delighted.

The moment she entered the room, Julie cast such a despairing glance at Étienne that he knew that whatever trouble he was in, she had had some hand in it. He wondered vaguely if the Jondrettes had discovered the Game, but he had always been very discreet, showing almost no interest in the little girl when anyone was around.

"Get out!" Madame Jondrette barked, and for one second of relief Étienne thought that he was being instructed to go, that their anger was too much for words or actions—in which case he would immediately take up his stash and flee to Paris as he had always planned. Then he saw that Madame was turned to her husband, and realized that this command was intended for him. Monsieur Jondrette acquiesced as always; he left the little house through the door he had entered only moments ago, slamming it in his wake.

Julie was moving jerkily; Étienne glanced at her over her mother's shoulder. Her lips were moving and she was gesturing in a way that was almost obscene. She seemed near tears. He nodded slightly in response, frustrated that she was thinking of the Game in a situation like this.

All this time Madame Jondrette's eyes had been trained on Étienne, her disgust intensifying until one arm shot out and a large hand wrapped around Étienne's thin neck, pressing him against the wall, cutting off his breath.

"My—DAUGHTER!" she screamed, her nostrils flared and snorting like a provoked bull. Her grip tightened around his neck. She seemed to be searching for words, but unable to find them in the midst of her indescribable ire.

The pressure against Étienne's throat became more and more unbearable as she applied more and more force. He felt spasms in his lungs as they screamed for air, and his head began to pound in rhythm with the spots that danced across his vision. He heard the sounds of his own choking magnified in his ringing ears like a voice-trumpet, his heartbeat slamming against his consciousness, and in the distance the shrill sound of Julie's voice. At last his eyes made a final pitch upward into their sockets, and the whole room collapsed into oblivion.

* * *

**Hours Later**

Julie wept quietly at his side as Étienne snapped the reins; Monsieur Jondrette's poor stolen horse was already thundering away from Perche at top speed, but somehow Étienne felt that the town could not disappear quickly enough.

When the two of them had reached the old wagon the treasures inside, collected over two decades, were piled so high that Étienne went back to the house for Madame Jondrette's quilt, which they had tied over the bundle to keep it from falling in their mad escape from Perche. They left quickly, before someone found out what Julie had done.

Étienne was only slightly aware that he had remained in the little town for so long because of Julie. He had grown attached to her, though calling it "love" would be a bit of a stretch, and found it inconvenient to leave her behind when he went to seek his fortune, for where else would he find such an open, impressionable mind so receptive to his ideas? He had hardly ever explored how he felt about the girl, but it just seemed to make sense that she stay by his side. He glanced surreptitiously at her.

Julie was indeed by his side. She sat with her shoulders drawn forward, tears slipping over her fleshy, freckled cheeks, her body jostling slightly with the motion of the carriage. He could not stop his eyes from traveling to her chest.

He realized after a moment that she was holding her hands before her face, staring at them in silent horror. Étienne transferred the reins to one hand, dug into his pocket, and retrieved a handkerchief with the part of the initials "PF" still stitched into the corner, and passed it to her. She took it with almost no acknowledgement and immediately began scouring her nails, scrubbing away the drying blood of her mother.

"I guess," Étienne said at last, "we're married now."

Their eyes met for a moment, and Julie allowed a trembling smile to flicker across her face for the briefest moment before she turned away.

The ride to Paris was long and silent, and Julie spent much of the time staring at the passing scenery, the palms of both hands pressed against her stomach, all of her thoughts turned inward, listening and feeling for signs of the life that was forming there.


End file.
